The Desk
by Bluejay141519
Summary: It wasn't the first time Jay looked at his badge and wondered why. No whump this time, just some angst Jay as he struggled to get over Erin. May continue if people like it.


***flops dramatically onto the floor***

 **uggghhhhhhhh. hi. this has zero whump in it, its more of a character study of sorts. The next one shot is coming, I promise i've been trying to work on it as much as my motivation (and my classes) will let me.**

 **this is unbeta'd and unedited. Theres probably spelling mistakes. Please leave me a review to what you think, because I definitely _could_ add a second and third chapter with whump in it. Just saying.**

* * *

 **Jay's P.O.V. (as usual)**

It wasn't the first time I've looked at my badge and wondered _why_.

Why to a lot of things, but this especially. Why I did the things I did, why she did the things she did. Why I even have a badge at all.

As usual the brass just glints back at me without answer or care.

I joined the army because I wanted to serve. I had this incessant _want_ to wear a uniform, to have people look at you with respect and gratitude. I knew I wanted to be apart of something bigger. I wanted what I never had as a kid, I wanted someone to tell me good job.

Its why I worked so hard in the army, its why I pushed to be detailed to the best unit.

Coming home was different. Coming home was things learned, was things changed and altered. The reasons I went into the army were selfish, and probably didn't respect the uniform as much as I should've. When I flew home with my best friend in a casket next to me, I knew I would still get everything I wanted. I'd get a medal or something, I'd get the respect from people as I walked off the plane.

It came at a cost. I joined naive enough to believe I'd walk away unharmed. That I wouldn't lose people, that I wouldn't have to kill others. That I could somehow escape it all.

I changed. The world changed.

My posttraumatic stress disorder wasn't as violent as everyone else's. I didn't have horrible flashbacks in public, I didn't sit in an empty room with a knife and gun waiting for someone to come through the door. It wasn't as visible. But the nightmares were constant and real and so twisted it would take me hours after waking up to come back to myself.

Alcohol made it easier to forget everything. Which, for a soldier returning home after...well after what happened...hindsight being twenty twenty Vegas was not the best place for me. I had no job and was staying in some semi decent hotel and it was so easy to blend in with the crowd, to be just another drunk tourist. And if I could drink enough that I wake up on the floor in a puddle of vomit, but do it without a nightmare, then maybe I could avoid putting a gun to my head.

If Mouse had died, I would've followed soon after. As it was, it took him over six months to get back on his feet, and the second he did the bastard was kicking down my door and dragging me into the shower to get sobered. I still consider it pure fate he found me when I did, because I had managed to get alcohol poisoning and with no one really caring about me, I wouldn't have survived.

We left Vegas after that. I felt trapped in everywhere I knew, like the placed expected me to be a person that I no longer was. He took me to Chicago anyway. I didn't work at first, because I refused to sleep at night. He wouldn't let any alcohol in the apartment, but there were still a lot of night I snuck out. I was caught between wanting to try and live again and wanting to stay where I was, because living was like an insult to-

It's been nine years and I still can't say her name.

I knew I wanted to stop having to do this. I wanted, selfishly, to be able to sleep at night not during the day, to not need a drug to make the hurt dull, just a little. But I wasn't strong enough to go to a therapist, and I still knew nothing about what Chicago was anymore.

After a year I managed to work up the courage to get a night job (since I wasn't sleeping anyway) and I quit the second day. The guy didn't seem surprised or angry. He looked at me when I applied, saw I had checked off the veteran status and looked back with a knowing smile.

"Congratulations." He had said, and me, still wondering why he wasn't pitying me, just blinked at him.

"Walking through the door for the first time since you've been back is the hardest thing."

He was right. Later, I'd realize he served too. I needed to try though, to know I couldn't do it. Not yet.

I spiraled hard for a week after that. Mouse just about lost his mind, because I didn't come back for more than three days. When I did, I was soaked to the bone, hypothermic, dehydrated and hadn't eaten anything in the same amount of time. He whipped open the door, anger and fear waring on his face and just kind of stopped. I smiled, handed him a soggy police application, and passed out.

Two years after coming home, I was cop. Seven years later, sitting in my ex girlfriend's apartment and staring at my badge, I still don't know why.

At first, it was simple logic. I needed a job, I needed a routine, and I needed something to fill the time. Being a cop was simple. It was just like the army, only I have to put the puzzle pieces together, instead of looking at the already completed picture. The academy was easy, I passed with flying colors.

I'd come home calmer, I'd smile easier, I'd be okay for a little while. Even though I still woke screaming, and even though I sometimes left bruises on my only friend as he tried to help me, there were parts of my day where I was okay. And simple being okay was...unheard off.

I graduated and was a patrolmen for two years before taking the detective's exam. I think I literally _bounced_ through the door after I got the results because " _Mouse! Mousemousemousemouseeeeeeee I fucking got it man!"_

Mouse was my own failure. He left, left me the apartment, left me everything but his honesty. I guess helping me was what was keeping him from acknowledging he was just as screwed up as I was. And now that I was getting better, he couldn't hide it anymore. I guess he thought that if he was struggling around me, then I would start digressing and after two years of my life devoted to getting better, he refused to be the reason I spiraled again.

Oh yeah. I'm _that_ guy. Who was so obsessed with his own bullshit, he couldn't look out for the guy saved his life...and who supported him for two years.

I couldn't do both though. I couldn't get myself help and save him. He was right on that part. How can you save someone from drowning if you yourself doesn't know how to swim?

By the time I met Gabriella Dawson, I was better. I still had nightmares, but they were no longer the twisted, grotesque things they used to be. Now they were just...memories. Sometimes I'd wake up sobbing, not because I watched my team leader get shot, but because I got to see Stix smile and hear Alex laugh. It _hurt,_ because I knew I'd never get to do any of it again.

I never loved Abby. She was struggling as much as I was, and it we happened to be in the same place at the same time (its wasn't right place right time, because nothing that happened in Vegas was _right_ ). When she came back with the same demons in her eyes that I had spent nine years burying, it put something cold in my chest.

In a way it was for the best. It showed me how far I hadn't really come, and it showed me how different Erin and I really was. It didn't mean I stopped loving her, no that won't happen for a while, if ever. She'll stop loving me, if she hasn't already.

I packed my bag that night because I realized she didn't know me. She loved the new and improved Halstead, the one who knows how to hide his nightmares and dodge questions about his past. She didn't love the one who left for the army, or the one who came back. She loved the Detective. Not the soldier.

I know she would've tried. And it was after I talked with Will that I realized why she was so upset about it (besides the fact that I literally walked out on her). I had pried into her past so much, had asked her to be so open and honest with me, and the first time she asked the same from me I couldn't even begin to explain. I just ran.

I couldn't...that cold thing in my chest just grew heavier whenever I thought about telling her. I knew that's what she needed. Just one step, just one memory to show her I was trying. And I did try, so, so many times. But every time we talked she just seemed to get more angry, we feel farther and farther apart. I couldn't talk to her anymore, I didn't _have_ her anymore, and it was more than destabilizing.

Voight was two seconds away from firing me, Al didn't care, Will was busy with his own romance issues, and the rest of the team sure as hell didn't know me nearly enough to do or say anything.

Mouse answered the video call with a smirk that disappeared the second he saw my face.

" _Do you want to talk to me or to the First Lieutenant?"_

" _Both, if shes up for a pity party." Mouse's expression darkens._

" _Jay asking for help is not the same as pity."_

" _Is she there?"_

" _Yeah."_

" _Give me five minutes?"_

" _VA meetings are everyday at the Rosco Center. Ask for Jax." He says without missing a beat, then glances over his shoulder and quickly vacates the chair. An old friend flops into the chair, cleaning a long knife with a cloth._

" _Who am I killing this time?"_

" _Why do you always assume that you need to kill someone?"_

" _Because every time me and you have one of these talks, it's inevitably about someone who convinced you that there's something wrong with you. So-" She sticks the knife an inch deep into the table her laptop sits on, then leans forward to get closer to the camera in way that would be threatening to anyone who didn't know her. "- who was it, what did they do, and how long should I hospitalize them."_

 _Ten minutes later she's pinching the bridge of her nose with a expression of pain on her face as I finish telling her about Lindsay._

" _Okay." She says, sitting back and taking a deep breath while obviously trying (and failing to) keep her face neutral. "You know I never liked her. But this is not me ragging on her, although, trust me, I'd love to. However...this might be for the best. You can't change her mind, moving out to New York is a mistake, she...doesn't want you with her. I know she doesn't know you were about to propose, but if she doesn't feel for you enough to talk it through with you then...I think you already know how she feels. She's still going to go to New York."_

" _Nothing I do is going to change that." I admit, feeling phantom pain spike across the inside of my chest._

" _No." She agrees softly. "And yes, I do think if things had been different you would have figured it out. But if you can't change this, then you can only try to move on. You need to find someone to help you do that."_

 _I jerk my head up, angry. "I'm not just going to find some fuckbuddy-"_

" _Not like that you neanderthal!" She growls. "I mean you need to talk to somebody. Not just the people in your meetings - which, by the way, I can't believe you actually go to, because you could barely do group presentations in high school, and now you're talking about your worst fears in front of a group of strangers - but you need to find someone you trust. Someone who you know that doesn't know what happened to you."_

" _Will." I rasp, always able to pick up her subtle clues faster than anyone. She nods, eyes still soft in a way that Mouse always said she reserved for me and just me._

" _He's worried. And he wants to help-" She stops, glancing over her shoulder suddenly. "Okay do me a favor and next time you call tell Mouse you started going to the VA meetings because he suggested them. It'll make him feel better." I open my mouth to tell her that was my plan in the first place, but click my jaw shut as he walks by in the background._

" _Anyway." She murmurs. "I know...that your first instinct is to…" She pauses again, huffing as she tries to figure out a way to say 'drink yourself into a hole for the foreseeable future' without actually saying that._

" _I...I don't want to." She glances up at me through the camera. "But I don't know what else to do to- to-" I cut off the admission as a surge emotion makes my throat tight and my eyes water, because yeah, this is me admitting how badly it hurts that she's just gone. That she didn't care enough to work it out with me. That I expected her too._

 _It hurts to know everything we had and everything we could have had, is never going to be again._

" _Jay. I know nobody's ever told you this before, but- look at me." i manage to pull my eyes up. There's no pity, no cruelty, nothing that says she thinks I'm weak because of the tear running down my face._

" _It's okay to want to stop being in pain."_

 _I press a hand against my mouth to stop the breath from being driven from my lungs. It doesn't work and a sob squeezes between my fingers as all the coldness turns to hot liquid pain that doesn't burn, but aches in a soul deep scream of grief. I'm crying openly, and I drop my head to my hands as the ancient self preservation instinct kicks in, to keep her from seeing even though she's one of the few people on earth who's ever seen me do so._

" _I know you. And I know this is going to hurt for you much longer than it will for her. But the sooner you accept it...the sooner you can work on moving forward. That starts one day at a time." Something beeps on her end, what, I don't know, because I'm still busy trying to will the emotion back down my throat._

" _I got to go, but...as for how you move on...You've never let anyone control you. Not your Dad, not CO, not even your Sargent. So why are you letting her?"_

 _The video feeds ends with a little jingle of sound. I curl up in the chair and bawl, mourning everything I've lost for the first time since I since I lost my mother._

Lindsay left Friday night. It's now Monday morning, and I only have to get my things from her place, leave the key on the counter, and I'll never have to set foot here again. I sure as hell wasn't going to live in the last place I saw her happy.

I told Will what happened in short, clipped sentences, and gave him the ring back.

It would be easier I think, if I knew work would be the same. If I got to walk back into _my_ desk, not the rookie desk, to my chair and to the wall right behind my back that allowed me to not be on constant guard all the time. It would be much easier, if Voight wouldn't be covering his emotions with anger, and if that anger wasn't directed at me, and if Al was still my friend and gave a shit or two. It would be easier if I wasn't in this position at all, and the little evil voice in the back of my head says to turn in my resignation, because then all this hard shit wouldn't matter, and I could do what I want. _Besides_ , it whispers, _why do you even have that badge in the first place? Because it sure as hell wasn't so you could help people._

No, it was so I could help myself. And fuck me if that isn't the most selfish reason for picking it up. I don't deserve it, any more than I deserve the medals on my uniform. But I have them anyway. I have things I shouldn't because I'm selfish, and I don't have the things I want for the same reason. You'd think after thirty years, I'd try not being such a shitty person.

Three days since she left. I glance at the bare walls I measured for a tv, the couch I helped her get, the bedroom opening that led to plenty of lovemaking and just as many late night secrets.

" _You've never let anyone control you. So why are you letting her?"_

I sigh and slip the badge into my backpack. If I hurry, I won't be late for work.

…

The bullpen is quiet. Suspiciously quiet. It's only eight, but everyone's doing work, including Ruzek and Atwater, and that sure as hell doesn't happen. Which means they're taking in every detail, from how I'm walking to what I'm wearing.

So the sunglasses, headphones in ear, decisively all black clothing, and semi full back pack is definitely stored away and contributed to whatever little conspiracy theory they've thought of in their little heads.

' _Or'_ I think as I notice the bare quality of my newly assigned desk. ' _There's that.'_

I pause only for a second, because...well because it hard enough walking into the precinct today, that maybe getting fired is for the best. Instead of dwelling, or making a scene, I just walk into the breakroom, slip my backpack from my shoulders and reach into the cabinet to grab my favorite work mug (you know, the one that says 'fuck the police' one it in simple typewriter script). That goes into my bag in place of my badge and gun, and the I slip the thing onto both shoulders. Walking out of the break room I look glance at the watchful faces for the split second it takes me to round into Voights office.

I barely hear the "Halstead?" that slips from Hank's mouth in a confused tone, like he thinks I wouldn't notice the fact that he cleared out my desk for me. I slap my badge and gun onto the open file he was looking at, and get all the way turned around and halfway through the door before his sharp bark cuts through the music still sounding in my ears.

With not so much as a sigh I pull my headphones out and turn around, closing the door.

That confused look is still there for some reason, and underneath it is concern. Which is something really don't appreciate since he just fired me.

"If you wanted a transfer, or some time off, I'd give it to you, ya know."

I don't say a word and I don't move. I focus on breathing, and thinking, on the quietly building anger in my chest. I've never known voight to be subtle, and it's pissing me off to hear him beat around the bush now. He takes my silence for what it is.

"Look. I know its gonna take a while for you to get over her, and I of all people understand that. But this-" He makes a vague gesture towards my gear and the office, implying that he means the situation at hand. "- this is not it."

Okay. Maybe he doesn't take my silence for what it is.

"Why are you doin this Halstead?"

"I'm not." I nearly spit. The outburst - and the venom in it - surprises us both. "You the one who cleaned out my desk, or did you forget?"

Now, normally I am not so stupid to talk like this to my boss. But he's not my boss anymore. That was established.

Voight blinks, surprised coloring his features.

"I didn't touch your desk." He pushes himself up from his chair and peak around me to see out the window. The surprise and slight anger fades, and a small smirk of amusement takes it place.

He pats my shoulder and opens the door.

"Stop underestimating your team Jay." He says quietly before walking into the bullpen.

"Grab your gear, we got a double homicide in Madison Park."

I stand, frozen at the rapid change in information. Slowly I look to my left.

There, with the knick knacks, random pens and notepads, computer, and single picture frame a top it's faded wood finish, if my desk. All perfectly put together like someone took crime scene photos of it at some point and was simply reconstructing it.

I stare at it until Upton walks in from the locker room hallway, grabs her coat from Lindsays her desk, and hands me one of those insulated paper coffee cups. She takes a few steps, then realizes I'm still standing there staring at her.

"C'mon _Detective_." She puts some emphasis on the word. "We have work to do." And with that she descends the stairs, leaving me alone with coffee, music still playing from my headphones, and thousand questions that most certainly won't be answered standing here.

I sip the coffee and groan. Triple sugar and cream with vanilla. She's been here less than a week how does she _know._

* * *

 **Ta-da. Any poor soul who's read I Am Intelligence (seriously what was I doing with that story) and anybody who watches flashpoint and knows one Sam Braddock, I hope you enjoyed the slight reference. (because seriously, in my perfect world, Sam helped train Jay, and Maddie _Callahan_ is their estranged daughter. ha. )**

 **Thank you for reading!**


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